


AKA I Care

by anomalation



Series: Angel [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, but it's not really about that it's about the
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23602930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalation/pseuds/anomalation
Summary: Jessica does a favor for a friend that gets out of hand.As always, canon is a field of daisies and I pluck about 80% of any given season.
Relationships: Jessica Jones & Billy Russo, Jessica Jones & Danny Rand, Jessica Jones & Karen Page, Jessica Jones & Matt Murdock, Malcolm Ducasse & Jessica Jones
Series: Angel [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698481
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	AKA I Care

**Author's Note:**

> To say I've got beef with the way Punisher and Jessica Jones ended would be an understatement. Take this instead. Compliant with the previous story but not super related. 
> 
> Thank Abbie for catching me in the exact right mood to finish this after two years.

Karen is unhappy. And when Karen’s unhappy, Jessica finds she tends to be pretty unhappy too. And not just because Karen’s her sister’s new best friend-slash-roommate, but also because Karen is what Trish’s mom would call A Trooper. She puts her head down and does shit without complaining. Jessica loves complaining. It’s an art form, when done properly. But it’s not Karen’s thing.

So when Karen flops down on couch with a deep sigh and tells them her day was tough, that’s enough to make Jessica pay attention. “Tough how?” Trish asks.

“Not really… well,” Karen says, apparently already second-guessing herself.

“No, tell us,” Trish insists.

“I mean,” Karen begins. “It’s not his fault.”

“I will guarantee, it definitely is,” Jessica says dryly.

Karen smiles. “Look,” she says. “He’s trying.”

“Who, Matt?” Trish guesses.

“Billy,” Karen admits, after a long grudging silence. “He’s…”

“He’s a war criminal,” Jessica says.

Karen laughs a little bit, which is how Jessica knows Karen’s seriously frustrated. “Yeah. But, he’s… he’s a lot of work. And I’m not always up for that. But then he takes that personally.”

“What did you have to do, do you have to do something for him?” Trish frowns.

“We got lunch,” Karen says, looking at the ceiling.

“And?” Jessica prompts.

Karen sighs deeply. “And he wants me to meet him. Tomorrow. He needs some help. Researching some old competitors or something. He never gives details,” she adds, massaging her temples so her eyelids stretch.

Trish looks pointedly at Jessica, but it takes several long seconds for Jessica to pick up on the hint. “I can do it,” Jessica says, already regretting the offer. “Help him. It’s my field, after all. He’d probably just need to hire me anyways,” she adds archly.

“Jess,” Trish says with a disapproving frown.

“No, she has a point,” Karen says. She sounds exhausted. “But you don’t have to. I’ll figure out if it’s a real job and get back to you.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jessica shrugs. Trish very accurately and very quickly throws an almond at Jessica’s forehead. It makes stinging, solid contact. “Ow. What, do you want me to insist?” she says to her sister, and Trish nods.

Karen, of course, says, “You don’t have to do that.” Which is when Jessica knows she’s going to do this for Karen anyways. The rest is just negotiation.

Billy wants to meet Karen in a weird parking lot on the waterfront, and not anywhere useful like city hall or a library. So as not to throw the illusion, Jessica doesn’t protest the directions given to her - she goes, but remains secure in the knowledge that it’s dumb as shit.

She skulks for a while, near the side of a building, waiting for him to show up. It’s only six minutes after the appointed meeting time when she hears a silky voice from her right say, “You’re not Karen.”

“I’m not Lady Godiva either,” Jessica says. “No points for creativity.”

From the shadows emerges Billy, in a black trench coat that fits looser than it should. He’s not as strong as he used to be. Jessica could take him, without question, she notes with satisfaction. Good.

“Is Karen alright?” he asks, with an air of thinly-veiled patience.

“She’s fine,” Jessica says. “Something came up. Plus, I’m the man for the job, since I’m an actual PI. Not a cub scout.” That was rude; Karen’s more than a cub scout.

Billy doesn’t comment on it. “You’re just going to help me?” he says dubiously. “You don’t know me.”

That is true. After that whole hospital explosion thing, where Karen spilled their collective guts to him, Jessica’s only seen him in passing. Sometimes he comes to those team parties Trish and Karen are always organizing, but Jessica doesn’t ever stay long. “I’m not doing this for you,” Jessica says. “So yeah. Who are you looking for dirt on?”

“That’s a mischaracterization.”

Jessica stops trying to look cool and turns to look at him, very frustrated. “Dude,” she says, her hands in her pockets. “Can we please cut the bullshit? Or at least go inside if we’re going to keep up the whole thing much longer? It’s cold.”

“Inside where?”

So that’s how Jessica ends up in basically the seediest coffee shop even she’s ever been in, getting a hot cup of joe with a dead man. A dead man she doesn’t even particularly like, as far as dead men go. She wishes this coffee was spiked. It’s been a tough month.

Billy has a sip and looks out the window. “I don’t want dirt,” he says after a moment. “I’m looking for information.”

“Same diff,” she shrugs. “Who?”

“There are certain players,” he says, very deliberately. “Who might recognize me. If I come out of hiding.”

“Are you coming out of hiding?”

He has another sip instead of answering right away. “Karen doesn’t usually ask so many questions,” he eventually says.

“Bullshit,” Jessica snorts. “She’s a reporter. I’m sorry it’s not possible to investigate someone without knowing their name. If that’s so offensive to you, maybe you should do your own dirty work.”

“They know my face, or else I’d go in there myself,” he says tightly.

“So I’m going somewhere?” Jessica says, and when he doesn’t immediately answer, she twists the knife. “So it’s field work. And you were going to send in Karen. A normal human. To get dirt on your old friends so you can go to your favorite fancy restaurants again."

Billy flushes unevenly, his cheeks going pink around his scars. "Forget it," he says, and starts to get up.

Jessica stops him with one hand wrapped in the collar of his stupid coat. He pulls against her grip, and she has a leisurely sip of coffee while he tires himself out. When he slumps back into place, she lets go and looks at him. "I've got superpowers, idiot," she says. "Drink your coffee."

He doesn't. She can see him evaluating the distance to the door, and she heads him off by adding, "Do you think strength is my only enhanced ability?"

"I think there's only one way to find out," he answers, and he's gonna make another break for the door if she doesn't stop him.

If he leaves, Karen will feel guilty for not coming, and Trish will make that Jessica's problem. "Look," Jessica says, leaning on the table and folding her hands. "I don't give a shit about you. Seriously." He's not offended by that; on the contrary, he finally looks her in the eyes, apparently actually listening. "But I'm the one you get for this. Not Karen. If she gets hurt, you're going to have half a dozen people out for your blood. Including the guy that put your face through a window."

"Mirror," Billy corrects her.

"Whatever."

He looks a little less like he's about to bolt now. He has a sip of his coffee. She's trying to get a bead on him, but that's just about impossible. His thought process is inscrutable. And she kind of respects that. "Okay," he says after a second. "Can you read minds?"

"Maybe," she answers with an innocent shrug. "What's the case?"

Billy straightens up, takes a second before answering. "There are certain individuals," he begins, and Jessica rolls her eyes so hard it hurts. "Who might have suspicions about my death. I need to know what they know."

"So you can kill them safely?" she asks. She doesn't really need to ask. She knows the answer is yes.

"So I can make an informed decision," he says instead.

It's not politeness. That's not why he's talking around this. He doesn’t give a shit about being polite to her. He wants power, the kind of power that comes from leaving people in the dark and working around them. And Jessica doesn’t particularly mind that, on a meta level. She just doesn’t like being in the dark against her will. But then, she guesses, it wouldn’t be a favor if she liked what she was doing.

“Fair enough,” Jessica says, aware that she’s been silent for a few moments too long. “Who’s first?”

Billy hands her a business card. “I need to know what he knows, and if he has any particular patterns of behavior.”

“By when?”

That question surprises him. “Soon,” he says after a moment. “I don’t know.”

“What kind of plan is this if you don’t have a time frame?”

“Well, I didn’t know I was having a private investigator do it,” Billy snaps.

“No, you were asking an amateur, so you kept your schedule loose,” she says flatly.

Billy presses his lips together and she prepares for him to run again, but instead he gives her a grudging half-smile. “I guess I’m lucky you decided to take over,” he says, in a way that makes her feel vaguely condescended to.

“Yeah,” she says. “Lucky you. Are we done?”

“Don’t you need my contact information?”

“I’ll find you when I need to,” she says, and knocks back the rest of her coffee before standing up.

He stands with her, moving fast to match her, and he holds the door for her on the way out. She glares at him for it. “I’m not going now,” she says, except she probably will. She doesn’t have any clients, so this is the most interesting thing she’s done for weeks. And Malcom keeps telling her she needs a hobby.

“Fine,” Billy shrugs.

“So you’re gonna follow me somewhere anyway?”

He almost does. There’s something in his dark dead eyes that wants something from her. Like Kilgrave wanted, maybe. Without giving anything back. She shivers, and Billy takes a step back. “No,” he says. “Not unless you want me to.”

If that was flirting, Jessica wants no part of it. After one quick scan of the area for onlookers, she pushes off and jumps four stories up, onto the roof. Try following that.

Jessica meets Billy on some godforsaken rooftop next. At least it’s daytime.

Anticipating a trap, she climbs up the side of the building, in an alley where no one will see her. She manages to surprise him, but just for a second. He turns at the sound of her landing, and watches her in a detached way. “It’s been like, a week,” he says. As if she’s unaware.

“I had some free time,” she answers, and pulls the notes she gathered out of the back of her pants. That goes to him. Then she gets the flask from her pocket and has a deep pull while he’s reading.

Billy’s eyes flick up to her, then back down to the papers. “How much time did you spend on this?” he asks, flipping to the second page. He reads fast.

“As much as I had to.” On second thought, she finishes the flask and stows it back in her pocket. “So when are you gonna take him out,” she says when the silence drags on too long. “Morning run? One of his late nights at the bar?”

“What do you recommend?” he says.

“Nice,” she says, pointing at him. “Turn the tables. Good way to avoid providing an opinion or thought. Anything that could be pinned down.”

Billy flips through the other three pages, a little quicker, skimming. Then he shuts the file and looks at her. “How about I get you something to drink again?” he says.

“Not really in the mood to sober up,” she says. “I think I’ll pass.”

“No,” he says. “A drink.”

She takes him to a dive bar - one of the few she’s still allowed in. Billy buys a round of shots, and she feels a little better. Just a little. “Who’s the next one,” she says.

Billy looked at the mirror on the back of the bar, at the kaleidoscope of bottles in front of it. “Karen must be pretty pissed,” he finally says.

“What makes you say that?”

“If you’re actually helping me,” he says, looking down at the bar. “She must want to avoid me pretty bad.”

“Not everything’s about you,” she grumbles. The edges of her vision flicker purple, and for a second her heart feels like it’s going to fail. She needs to get out of here and drink properly. “Who is it. Are you going to tell me? Or are you going to wallow in self pity some more.”

It works, as much as Billy obviously doesn’t want it to. He hands over another business card. Another dude who used to be his competition, who’s taken over his old business. She did some research of her own, this last week.

“You can’t just kill people for having a job you wish you still had,” she says, half under her breath.

“Who says?” he demands, a little sharp.

She gives him a look. “I’m glad we’re so mature. Anything else I need to know?”

For a second, it seems like he’s going to say something real. “No,” is all he says in the end. “Thank you.”

“Whatever. Thanks for the drink.” She stands up, nearly falls, catches herself on his shoulder. "I'm fine," she says preemptively.

This is self-sabotage. She recognizes the shape of it by now. She overachieved, so now she has to prove she's still a disaster. And it's more than that too. It's the darkness crowding her vision, the slight figure she sees around every corner. It's every man telling her to smile, even if they don't have British accents. And it's the way sleep keeps slipping out of her hands every time she lies down, the way her heart beating hard keeps her from closing her eyes for more than a few minutes. The memories chasing her into her streets, following around a stranger on the behalf of another stranger.

With all that in mind, she thinks she should be forgiven a few extra bottles of whiskey this week. If Billy's going to give her shit, she'll break his arm.

She tunes back in to reality, and has the unfortunate realization that thinking all of that took enough time for Billy to be looking at her like she's insane. "I'll be in touch," she says gruffly, and makes her way outside. He doesn't try to stop her.

If she was less of a newly-good person, she'd try to find Luke. As it is, she goes home. Malcolm's there, and he's seen her self-destruct enough that he won't try to stop her.

He sighs when he sees her. "You know there are other ways to handle this, right?" he says.

"Not in the mood." She kicks off her shoes on the way to bed, and wraps herself up in the blankets so she can't see anything at all. In the silence, she hears Malcolm leave. He locks the door.

But locks can be picked. Or people can be thrown through windows. People can hold knives to their own throats, and jump off of bars and die in this bed, right where she's lying.

She sleeps for a few hours, fitfully, once she moves out to her desk. Then she hits the streets again. There's work to do.

Things go kind of sideways before she can get Billy the second guy. The main thing is that Trish makes herself sick with that incredibly dumbassed surgery. Then she kills Alisa. Then, she leaves Jessica alone.

When Trish liquidates her belongings and disappears, Karen buys the apartment. Jessica avoids it anyways.

And then she loses Trish forever. It erases all the possibilities Jessica has been sort of counting on, all the timelines where they make up in a few years snuffed out in an instant. Trish never got to apologize. She never wanted to, either. That hurts more than anything.

Jessica falls deeper into work, talks to fewer people. Malcolm only, just about. It’s passion, she tells herself, and keeps moving.

The third time they meet, Billy agrees to meet at a bar. Mostly because she tells him that’s where she’ll be, no negotiation. She sits in the far corner, slams back double whiskeys. Billy shows up between the third and fourth.

He’s got an air about him. Like he went to manners school, and studied how to stand. Probably got straight A’s, she thinks with disgust. God. It comes off as snooty and he knows it.

“Do you know what time it is?” he asks as he sits on the barstool next to her.

“After breakfast, before dinner. Why does it matter? Are you gonna tell my mom?” she says sarcastically. The bitterness isn’t directed at him, but Trish will never hear it.

Billy matches her tone. “Well I’ll certainly think about it.”

She eyes him. The sarcasm was funny. “Alright. Are you gonna be boring, or will you have something?”

He gets water, to humor her. Make her feel less alone. She hates that. She orders another double. “So the alcoholism,” he says when the bartender steps away. “Is that part of your process, or just a hobby.”

Jessica takes a sip, just a sip. Kilgrave feels further away now that she’s talking to someone. Maybe she should try this more often, she reflects, with a sense of grim irony. “Depends who you ask,” she says. “But right now I’m off the clock.”

He nods, looking stiff.

“Right,” she says. “The files. This guy was a little more tricky. He checks for tails semi-regularly so keep an eye out for that. It’s all in here.” The papers are under her arm, folded in half.

He doesn’t get any less stiff as he reads over the pages. She watches him very closely in her peripherals. “Is he gonna die too?” she asks when the silence was a little too long.

Billy flicked a look at the bartender, who was at the other end of the bar. “Is it a problem?” he asks.

“Not a problem,” she scoffs.

“Well it’s something. You keep bringing it up.” He’s reading quickly again, scanning her notes with sharp eyes.

She doesn’t know why she keeps bringing it up. Bad things happen to bad people. That doesn’t bother her. But something’s poking at her. “What’s your endgame, here?” she says at last. “With these guys.”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s it mean to win,” she says. Not sure she wants the answer. “When you know they aren’t coming after you? When they’re all gone?”

Billy folds the paper back up and puts it in an inside coat pocket. Then, he takes his jacket off. He’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt. It’s too big. He pulls the sleeves up, folds his hands on the table, and looks over at her. “You need to know that to do this shit?” he asks. He likes questions that mean more than they seem.

“Maybe I do,” Jessica says. “Maybe I need to know something more than just that you were going to ask Karen to do it.”

He nods. “There are two more,” he says. “Then I’ll take over. That was the plan.”

It’s information, but it also isn’t. Jessica isn’t nearly coherent enough to argue the finer points of this. “Okay,” she says. “Hand it over. Who’s behind door number four?”

Billy doesn’t tell her right away. He orders a drink, pays in cash. “When in Rome,” he says, and takes a sip.

“It’s not working,” she grumbles.

“What isn’t?”

She gestures at him vaguely. “I’m not big on small talk.”

“Who says I was gonna make small talk?” Billy responds.

“Me.” She knocks back the rest of her drink. “I know people. That’s my job. Let’s keep this professional.”

Billy snorts. “Oh, being wasted at one in the afternoon is professional?”

“Don’t fucking lecture me,” she snaps. “Who’s the mark?”

He keeps doing this thing, this shitty thing of pausing to control the rhythm of the conversation, and it’s driving her crazy. He does it again, now, and she interrupts his silence. “Why are you stalling like this? Is there somewhere you don’t want to go?”

“Home,” he says immediately, with a grin that probably is supposed to look charming. But Jesica knows the truth when a liar tells it. She hears it, and the light through the windows looks lavender for a second before she shuts her eyes. “You okay?” Billy asks, carefully distant.

“Fine,” she says, and digs her fingers in the inner corner of her eyes until she sees stars. “Mind your own business,” she adds in a mumble.

“You sleeping okay?”

It takes a second for the question to register. Her head is pounding. “Like a baby. I don't need this.”

"What?"

"Your concern. I'll get your shit done. Who is it?"

He ignores her for a second, has a drink looking straight ahead. "How's Karen?"

She's tempted to just take his coat and go through it until she finds what she needs. This pleasantry bullshit is more than she signed up for. But maybe if she plays along it'll go easier. "She's fine."

"Have you seen her?"

Stalker. She narrows her eyes at him. "No. We have a group text."

The look he gives her is incredulous. "Who's we?"

"The whole..." She makes a circular gesture with her finger. "There's a bunch of us. Some guys I helped out a while ago.”

"And Karen," Billy says, sounding dubious.

"Yeah. She started it. Well, Claire did."

"The nurse?"

She forgot Claire helped stitch up Billy's face. "Yeah," Jessica says. "Karen's fine. She texted us about some, uh. Something." She asked if everyone was okay. Jessica hadn't answered. "You know you can just ask her."

"She doesn't want to see me. And I can take a hint," Billy says, and finishes off his drink.

"Alright. Enjoy your wallow. Are you going to tell me who to go after or not?"

He hesitates; he wants to draw this out more. He's hitting on her, or trying to befriend her, or pitying her. She doesn't like any of those options. So she leaves without the information.

After a few minutes, she spots him following her, acting very nonchalant. He was a block back; she wouldn't have seen him if a bus with a very reflective window hadn't blocked the crosswalk. That made her lucky. Otherwise she would've just gotten home, and who knows what would've happened. She still doesn't know what might happen.

"Fuck," she says under her breath, startling a man crossing the street opposite way.

Her building is third ahead on the left. She has to make a decision.

She’s drunk. It isn’t a good time for decisions. Instead she ducks down a side street and hides behind a dumpster. Stick to what you know.

Billy's slower than she's patient enough for. She almost gets up. But then she hears his steps, and he's a few feet away and she shoves the dumpster - full, heavy, she notes in the back of her mind as she moves it with one unsteady hand - straight at him. He's pushed back against the brick wall, and held there. "You want to get crushed?" she demands.

His eyes are hard, impenetrable. "You're strong," he says.

"Am I?" she snaps, and pushes it a little tighter against him. "Why are you following me?"

"To see where fashionable alcoholics spend their Tuesday afternoons these days," he says.

It's infuriating. She's gearing up to test his crushability when she hears from above, "Jessica?"

She frowns and looks up. It takes a second to recognize the head poking out of the window several floors up. Malcolm. "Yeah?" she yells back after a second.

"Why are you squishing a man with a dumpster?" She can hear his smile.

"He followed me home." In the moment, she feels a lot like a kid, answering to her mom.

"I didn't know you were going home," Billy says, leaning his head back against the wall. He sighs. "The anticipation is killing me, here."

"Jessica," Malcolm yells again.

"What!" A pigeon startles at her volume.

"Are you drunk?"

"Yes," Billy answers for her.

"Shut the fuck up," she tells him, pointing at him.

"I'm coming down," Malcolm says. "Don't go anywhere."

"No danger of that," Jessica mumbles, and climbs on top of the dumpster lid to wait.

Billy looks very composed, somehow. Not at all panicked about the imminent collapse of his chest cavity whenever she feels like it. He sniffs, wiggles an arm free to itch his cheek. "So you live here?" he asks. Her furious glare shuts him up until Malcolm joins them.

Malcolm looks very cozy, in a large scarf and jean jacket. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Okay," he says. "Let's all take a breath."

"Little tough for me," Billy says.

Malcolm looks from Billy to her. Then he looks back at Billy and frowns. "What's going on?" he asks, in his most patient voice.

"He's our pro bono client," Jessica answers. She discovers something crusty on her jeans, on the thigh. "And then he followed me."

"So you pinned him to a wall?" Malcolm's tone is quickly turning judgy.

"It's not like I ripped his arm off," Jessica grumbles. "I'm sending a message. And the message is don't fucking follow me," she adds, looking at Billy again.

He's unimpressed. "Message received."

Somehow, she doubts it. But she hops down and frees him anyways. He takes a deep breath the moment he can, and puts his hand over his heart for a second. So he was a little more scared than he let on. Good.

"You need to sleep," Malcolm's telling her. "You're not thinking clearly."

“Fuck you.”

“Is she like this all the time?” Billy says to Malcolm, which sets Jessica’s blood on fire.

Malcolm frowns too. “Wait. _Who_ are you?”

“Billy Russo,” Jessica says. “Karen’s friend. Why were you in my apartment?”

“Someone was calling you. Like, six times in a row. I picked it up.” Malcolm shrugs. He does that a lot, shrugs like it’s not a big deal that he cares about her because he knows it is. And she kind of loves that about him.

“Who was it?”

“Long story. I took notes.”

If Billy wasn’t here, she’d do something nice. Put her hand on Malcolm’s shoulder maybe, or encourage him somehow. She looks at Billy. “Duty calls,” she says.

Billy nods once, infinitesimally. She’s getting better at reading him, she thinks. Or maybe she’s just drunker. “Then I’ll be going,” he says after a fraction of a second.

“Hold on,” Malcolm says. “Do you want to come upstairs? Have a cup of coffee? Go over some of the details of your case, maybe discuss the rest of the project.”

Jessica no longer wants to praise Malcolm. “You can’t upsell pro bono,” she says to him. “That’s the opposite of what you want to do.”

“I’m not trying to do that,” Malcolm says, with a stern raise of his eyebrows at her. “I’m trying to make peace with the stranger you’ve assaulted.”

A good point. Jessica can’t really argue, as much as she’d like to.

“I’m open to peace,” Billy says after a second. “And coffee.”

Of course he is. Goddamn it. Jessica drags her feet, trails behind the two guys on the way down the hall. She doesn’t want Billy in her space. As much as she might kind of like him somehow, she doesn’t trust him for a second.

Malcolm makes a lot of conversation, and she knows it for what it is now. Patter. Like a magician. Keep them talking, so they don’t notice the careful analysis he’s making. Jessica flops down in her desk chair while they’re doing that. There’s a bottle of cheap gin in the bottom drawer. She takes a pull, screws the lid back on. There’s a pad on her desk, Malcolm’s handwriting on it. Another woman, another cheating husband. Who gives a shit.

“Jessica?” Malcolm says. They’re both looking at her from the kitchen.

“What,” she says irritably.

“Coffee?”

“No. Thanks,” she adds begrudgingly.

Malcolm has an eye on her then. She shouldn’t have given herself away. Her jaw feels brittle. She wants to hit something, to prove that she still can. That no one’s controlling her.

“You okay?” Malcolm asks. He brings her a cup anyways, with room left.

She pours a liberal amount of whiskey in it before she answers. The whiskey’s in her other bottom drawer. To be polite, she holds it up towards the other two.

“No thanks,” Billy says with no trace of a smile.

And Malcolm’s been sober since Kilgrave. Duh. She stashes the bottle back away. Then she waits for the smart remark. It’s what she would do, in Billy’s shoes.

“You realize there’s an arrow in your door,” he says after a courteous thirty seconds.

“I’m aware,” Jessica mutters.

“And there’s a hole in your wall.”

She thought she saw Kilgrave. Punched first. “That’s temporary,” she says. “Anything else you want to go after? Ask me whose ashes are on the shelf, make another joke about alcoholism.”

Billy looked chastened. “Of course not,” he says, pacing a few steps. “You’ll crush me.” He looks back at her door, at the glass she keeps having to replace - and like honestly, why does she bother. “Alias,” he finally says.

“Yep.”

“Say I were looking to hire. What are your rates?”

Malcolm perks up. Talks the guy’s ear off. Billy listens to it all, like he’s serious, and then asks to use the bathroom before he heads out.

When he’s in there, Malcolm’s demeanor changes. He looks at Jessica, at her mug. “You still seeing him?” he asks quietly. Not quiet enough - Jessica knows without a doubt that Billy’s eavesdropping somewhere. Or maybe she’s paranoid.

“Yeah,” she forces herself to admit.

“Drinking like this, is that helping?”

“Sometimes.”

“You don’t have to do this, Jessica,” he says, and he really means it, too. He thinks he knows this, because of the heroin Kilgrave got him hooked on. He thinks he understands. It’s grating her nerves to shreds.

“I really do.” She drinks some coffee so she has room for more liquor in the mug.

“You can talk to someone,” he begins.

“Who? Who can I talk to about this. How will that help.” She stands up, points at her head. “He lives here. And for the record, it was a lot easier to be a nut job when you were one too.”

“Sorry,” he says with no sympathy.

Billy comes back after an appropriate amount of time, pretending he didn't listen. He shakes Malcolm's hand. "Nice to meet you," he says.

"Yeah, man. I hope you consider us in the future, for your investigative needs," Malcolm says. So business-like. Jessica rolls her eyes, but only a little.

"Of course," Billy says, because of course he'd say that.

He holds something out to Jessica, too. Another business card, for another target. Jessica registers the seal and the words, Department of Justice, and she looks back at him. "Seriously?"

"Not up to the task?" he says.

"Karen wouldn't be, asshole," she tells him, and he loses confidence. She's right, and they both know it.

He's not an idiot. That occurs to her later, as she peers into a gym from the roof across the street. He knows Karen couldn't do this. He probably wouldn't have asked it of her.

That’s obvious, actually, now that she thinks about it. He's an opportunist. So when she, an actual private investigator, showed up, he took advantage. That's so clearly what happened that she feels like an idiot for not noticing it sooner.

Jessica waits a day, so he’s not suspecting anything, and then she shows up at his apartment. He’s moved, since Karen moved out. She was paying the rent. Now he’s living in some place bought by a network of shell companies even she’s having trouble unravelling. The window’s easier.

She sits on his couch, in the darkness. He’s home an hour later. The moment he closes the door behind them, she inhales and he flicks a light on quicker than should be possible. “You,” he says, eyes narrowed. In the dim light, they look darker than normal. And that’s saying something.

“Me,” she answers, with half a smile.

“Did you get lost?” he inquires.

“Nope.” She stands up, pretending she isn’t aware of his eyes on her, and she starts pacing the room. She should’ve taken a sip of whatever stuff is in that crystal bottle on the bar before he got here. “So how much were you actually ask Karen to do?” she says after a second.

Billy smiles, but it’s cold and hard. “How long have you been sitting on that?”

“No,” Jessica says. “I want an actual answer.” She walks into the kitchen.

Billy follows, shedding his coat. She takes up refuge against the counter top, and looks at him. “Not this much,” he admits.

Jessica nods. Duh. But he said it, and that’s something. “And what’s the next step?” she asks. “Really. What is it.”

“I don’t know.”

She frowns at him. That’s a lie. “So you don’t want to tell me.”

“Yeah,” he shrugs after a second.

“Then why would you even tell me that?”

Billy comes closer, opens a cabinet and gets out two glasses. They’re Ikea, the same ones she has. He’s not as rich as he wants to be. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s very out of character, for me.”

“I can tell.”

“Yeah. And that’s part of it.”

She follows him back out into the living room, and Billy pours them each a drink. He moves elegantly, she notices again. She wonders if he ever drops the act. “Part of what?” she demands, when he doesn’t continue.

“Part of why I’m telling you.” He holds a glass out to her. “I get the feeling we’re cut from the same cloth.”

She looks at the glass with suspicion, and he sighs. “Fair enough.” He has a sip from her glass, swallows, and she figures that’s as good as it’s gonna get, in terms of confidence. She takes it, drains it, and pours herself another.

Billy snorts. “What are you running from tonight?” he asks, with a dainty sip of his own. He sits in a chair, a big old wingback thing.

She hops over the back of the couch and lays across it. “Same as always,” she says. “None of your business.”

“Oh, come now,” he says smoothly. “Don’t be like that. I thought we were practicing some radical honesty.”

“Or that’s what you want me to think.” It takes a lot of restraint to keep herself from downing the glass again. “Say something honest,” she challenged him then, swirling the liquor.

Billy’s silent for a moment. “I want to hire you,” he finally says. “But only if you’re not… morally opposed.”

“You give a fuck about my morals?” she said dubiously.

“Not one,” he counters cheerfully. “But I give a fuck about you not bailing on me.”

Jessica grumbles under her breath. “I don’t bail,” she says. “There’s a contract involved.”

“Is that a yes?”

It is. She doesn’t want to give him that. Then the light outside the window flashes purple, and she drops her glass. “Shit.” It’s not purple, it’s cop lights.

“Don’t tell me you’re on the run,” he says.

“No.” The glass didn’t break, but the little bit of bourbon still left in it spilled on the hardwood floor. “Do you have paper towels?”

“Tell _me_ something,” he says instead of answering. “Why’d that just happen?”

"It's a long story," Jessica says.

"So it's like that, huh." He seems sincerely disappointed. He looks into his glass. It's probably an act, a pitiful thing. It shouldn't work.

Jessica looks out at the flashing lights. "Do you remember the incident down by the docks, where..." She sighs. "There was the whole mind control scare. Like almost two years ago. And it ended when..." Embarrassingly, she has to clear her throat to finish. She can still feel Kilgrave's neck in her hand. "When someone broke his neck."

"Oh yeah," Billy says after a second. "Trish had him on her show, right? It was all the guys were talking about for weeks, they thought she might hire us."

"She doesn't need security," Jessica says. "She's got me." The use of present tense doesn’t fuck her up at first. Then, it really does.

Billy shrugs. "What about him?" he asks, and finishes his first glass. "What was his name? It was strange, right. I remember that."

"Kilgrave," she forces herself to answer, and then she chews on her lip to keep herself from doing something stupid. Like jumping out the window.

"So this Kilgrave," Billy says after what she realizes is a long silence. "You knew him?"

Jessica exhales half a laugh. "Yeah," she says. "You could say that. As much as anyone knew him, I guess. He..." She doesn't know what she was gonna say, so she stops. What’s really the best thing to say about him, after everything. What would make him make sense?

Nothing. He was an insane narcissist and an abusive shitty loser who was nothing without his superpower. So what if he had a tough childhood.

Billy's just waiting for her to talk. "He was a coward," she finally says. "And an asshole. And he never had a chance." She gets up to pour herself more, and also so she doesn't have to look at Billy's face.

"What do you mean by that?" he asks.

"His parents gave him the mind control shit," she says, focusing on keeping her pour steady. "They used him as a test subject for his whole childhood. So. Doesn't matter, though. He killed..." Hope. The Schlottmans. Reva, depending on how you count it. "And he stalked me. And now, apparently people like us don't just die. They can come back sometimes. So." She forgets why she brought this up to begin with. Billy's one-way glass, though. Nothing comes out of him. It's not like he'll tell anyone. "I'm immune," she says after a second. "He couldn't control me, at the end. But."

"You don't forget being helpless," Billy says.

Jessica sits back down. "No," she says. "You don't."

"Unless you're drunk," he adds, with a questioning head tilt.

She shakes her head. "I don't stay drunk long. Part of the whole thing."

Billy's careful reaction makes her second guess sharing that. He nods, slowly. "Not for lack of trying, though, huh?" She snorts into her glass, he snorts back. And something shifts between them. An understanding.

Before she has any answers for him, shit goes sideways again. Karen sends out a bat signal, so to speak. A group text. She needs help. So they show up at her apartment - Trish’s old apartment - for a team meeting. All the people who care about Karen. There are quite a few.

Jessica obviously shows up - in fact, she’s there several hours early to eat. The guys always eat all the good shit. Matt comes, and Danny and Colleen. Luke and Claire can’t make it - trouble in Harlem - but Frank can. And he brings Billy along.

They walk like soldiers. Shoulders back, steps heavy. Not afraid of being seen. Must be nice. And they walked in together, Billy slightly behind Frank. She watches them come in, then looks away so no one catches her. "I don't fucking like this," Frank says as a greeting.

"I'm not exactly a fan either," Karen bites back.

Jessica is limiting herself to wine tonight. She feels okay. Seeing Karen doesn't hurt. And she napped this afternoon, on Karen’s couch, so overall Jessica's in what she might even call a good mood. She doesn't run from the group. She leans in the corner of the counter and pays attention.

"Hey," Karen says. "Let's grab some food and a drink and we'll discuss the plan. Come on. Danny?" she prompts, which is a good idea. Danny loves snacks, and he'll listen to her. Once he comes over to the island and starts filling a plate, Frank follows, and things relax.

"Long time no see," Danny says, and looks up at Jessica with a bright smile. What a dork. She sighs. "How you doing?" he adds.

"I'm fine," she answers suspiciously.

"Just fine?"

Oh right. He's a touchy-feely dork. She pops a grape in her mouth. "I'm better than I have been," she says eventually.

"Awesome. Y'know," he begins, and comes over to stand near her. "If you ever want to come by the gym, we'd be more than happy to teach you how to use your strength more effectively."

"You just want me to be in karate club," she says. "Don't you."

Danny smiles, and his eyes actually look like they twinkle. "Little bit," he says. "We need something in common besides the neighborhood."

"Superpowers," she points out.

“Colleen would love to teach you to throw a formal punch. I’m just saying.”

She rolls her eyes, and he wanders away to bother someone else. Probably Matt, he likes bothering Matt. That’s really their uniting feature, as a group.

Billy and Frank are both grabbing food now, and Frank grabs a beer before going to find Karen. And then it’s just Billy, standing here, not looking at her but paying attention. She ignores him completely, and texts Malcolm. _I’m picking up food on the way home what do u want_

While she’s ignoring him, Billy sidles over to her, standing in front of her with his plate. If she was feeling less stable, she’d say she’s feeling trapped. “You got roped into this too?” he says.

“I’m a volunteer,” she answers reluctantly.

He smiles at that, in on the joke. She sees the appeal of him, a little bit. For a second. “Mother Teresa over here, huh?”

“Hardly.” She has a sip of wine. “But it’s Karen.”

“Right,” Billy says. “Everybody’s favorite nosy journalist.”

“Fuck off, dude,” Jessica frowns, and shoulders him out of the way to join everybody else in the living room.

Karen is standing near the window, eating, but her mind is clearly somewhere else. Jessica comes to stand over by her, squints out at the city. There's nothing in particular for her to be looking at. "Expecting something?" Jessica asks.

"Not from out there," Karen says, and turns to share a glance with her. "Why did I invite you all to my house? The six people responsible for the most destruction in the city outside of the Avengers."

"I bet Tony Stark would come if you asked."

"Probably through my window." Karen sighs, the deep long-enduring sigh of a person resigned to their fate. “But I really like that rug."

"If something goes down, I'll save the rug," Jessica says, and Karen smiles at her. Jessica can't help but smile back, just a little.

"You seem more cheerful than before. Feeling well-rested?" Karen asks after a second.

Jessica shrugs, looking away. "I dunno."

"I'm glad you got some sleep. How's Malcolm?"

"Still sticking around. He's fine. Really likes answering my phone."

"I know. I call, sometimes," she adds by way of explanation. "To check in on you. When you don't answer in the group text."

Jessica isn’t totally happy. There's an irrational kick of rebellion in her chest that she tamps down. Trish would do something like that, if she could. "Oh," she finally says. "Well. Then you know."

"Yeah, but. I still want to hear it from you," Karen says, and bumps Jessica's shoulder with her own. Jessica allows it. "You should come around more."

"I'll think about it."

Matt approaches, silent as ever, and sort of awkwardly clears his throat at them. "Where's your bathroom?" he asks.

"Oh, there's one back there." Karen points.

"Thanks."

It takes a few seconds for Karen to realize she just gave a blind man non-verbal directions. "God," she says then. “I’ll never stop doing that.”

“I’ve done worse,” Jessica says.

Karen snorts. “We should probably get this going, before these guys figure out some reason to fight."

Jessica's listening to Karen as she explains the problem, mostly. But she knows the details. She heard them when Karen was rehearsing earlier this afternoon. So Jessica zones out a little, and watches everybody.

Matt's listening intently, head tilted towards Karen in the way that means he's paying super-powered attention. Frank's only got eyes for Karen, too. Danny's all in, of course, and Colleen's leg is bouncing. She's ready to go. And then Billy. He isn't comfortable in the group, or in this apartment for that matter. He's here reluctantly. And he catches her watching him, so she makes a face at him and tunes back into what Karen's saying.

Long story. Some stalker who fixated on her. Electricity super powers, but nothing major. He's not Thor. But Thor would probably never stalk anybody, so. Moot point.

"How does your security system react to an outage?" Frank asks.

"I'm not sure. The building has a backup generator, we've only ever been out for a minute or so." Karen looks at Jessica. “Do you know anything about-”

“No,” Jessica cuts her off.

"You know where the fuse box is?" Frank asks. He ends up killing power to the whole apartment, just to see, with Matt listening for manual reactions to the outage and Colleen on Karen’s phone looking up the informational documents from the security company.

Jessica comes around to Danny's side and nudges him. "Hey," she says. "You're rich. You could probably-"

"I'll get a new security system for here," Danny says immediately.

"No. You should-"

"Hire security?" he asks, and then when she glared at him, he added more sheepishly, "Or maybe listen to you."

"Maybe." She rolls her eyes. "That'd be a first."

Danny's properly chastened. "I'm sorry. What were you suggesting?"

"How many cops do you have paid off? Can we try and figure out who this guy is without getting the police officially involved?"

"Jessica." Danny puts his hand over his heart. "I can't believe you'd ask me that." He waits a comedically appropriate beat, and says, "I know a guy. I'll run the identifying features we have. What was his name? Jerry?"

"Jeremy."

"Right." He pulls out his phone and steps away to make a call with a final warm smile at her. She doesn't know why he looks at her like that. Like they're friends or something. But she also feels like she gets it, too. Sometimes when she thinks about Philip, he's got Danny's eyes now.

She feels other eyes on her, Billy’s, so she meets his gaze. He tries to pretend he isn’t looking, but that’s obviously bullshit. “You gonna do something useful?” she says.

“And what would that be?” he inquires.

“Fuck if I know. I’m not Team Mom.”

“Yeah. Matt is,” Karen chimes in, looking over Colleen’s shoulder at her own phone. “Obviously.”

Matt turns his head towards them. “I am not,” he says, articulating clearly, “Team Mom. We aren’t even an official team.”

“What do you want, a membership certificate?” Jessica asks sarcastically. “Danny would get those made in a heartbeat, don’t tempt him.”

Danny, on the phone, snaps and gives them a thumbs up, and the corner of Matt’s mouth goes up in a small smile. “Well even if we are,” Matt says stubbornly, “We’re all the same age.”

“It’s more of a vibe thing.” Jessica strikes her most careless posture, so he knows how hard he’s being snarked at.

Matt shakes his head. “You’re ridiculous.”

Frank turns back on the power to the panic room. “What did that do?” he asks Matt.

“Nothing. The room’s still locked.” Matt shakes his head a bit - something loud must be happening somewhere within a couple blocks. “If there was a Team Mom, wouldn’t it be Claire?”

“Why, because she sews you back together whenever you get a paper cut?” Jessica snorts. “As if.”

“Bullet wounds, usually,” Matt says, stiffly offended. “Not all of us have healing.”

“Shut up,” Jessica sighs. “That’s not even for sure.”

“You walked away from a fist fight with Luke Cage,” Danny says away from his phone. “Even I barely could do that, and I’m-”

“The Immortal Iron Fist,” Jessica and Matt and Colleen all said in unison. “We know,” Jessica adds.

Danny makes a bit of a face. He recognizes what they said was funny, but he objects just the same. Then he has to return attention to his phone. “Yes, I’m here,” he says, and turns away again.

“To be fair, he might’ve added something about chi,” Colleen says absently. "So it's looking like in the event of a power failure, the door only opens with a special key," she says, looking up at Karen. "Do you know where that is?"

"Yes. Probably. Let me find my purse."

She has the key, the security system will work, whatever. Jessica is only half paying attention. She’s hungry, she eats a bunch more. She’s tired, too.

Matt comes up to her while she’s lounging in a one of Trish’s comfy chairs, feet up on an ottoman. “Jessica,” he says by way of opening.

“Matthew,” she says back. Something about him brings out her most sardonic urges.

“Frank’s friend,” he says quietly. “Who is he?”

“Billy Russo.”

“Not what I meant.”

Jessica sighs, and Matt steps a little closer, his leg close enough to touch. “He’s,” she begins, and finally finishes, “on his own side.”

“Karen seems to like him,” Matt says.

“Ah.” Jessica crosses her legs with an air of wisdom - or at least that’s what she’s going for. “So that’s what this is about.”

Matt is irritated. “No,” he says crossly. “This isn’t what this was about. I’m not…”

“You’re not,” she prompts.

“I have a little more dignity than that,” he informs her, very huffy.

“You sure about that?” Jessica regards him, while Matt flushes and fidgets but doesn’t walk away just yet. “I mean,” she says for only him to hear. “Yeah, she does. Sometimes.”

“What about the rest of the time?”

“That’s when he’s so wrapped up in his own shit that he forgets to treat her like a human being. Sound like anyone you know?” Jessica asks innocently.

Matt nods, his lips a tight thin line. “Fair enough,” he says. “Is he dangerous?”

“Not to her.” She looks away. “To himself, probably. To people in his way.”

“I see.” Matt itches his nose. “Well.”

“Is that the information you’re looking for?” she asks. “Satisfied his intentions are pure enough for you? I don’t think he’s Catholic, but I’m sure I could find out.”

Matt doesn’t say no right away. “Huh,” he says. “You really could, couldn’t you.”

“Thirty minutes tops.”

“Prove it.”

“What’s in it for me?”

He considers. “A drink on me?”

“Something else,” she says reluctantly. “Trying to do less of that.”

“Wow. I don’t want to say I approve, and trigger your contrary streak, so I’ll just say congratulations.” Matt finds himself very funny; he smiles at his own joke. Jessica finds it kind of cute, at this point. “How about a get out of jail free card?” he offers next. “Good for any misdemeanor.”

“I’ll take it,” she says after a moment of consideration, and they shake hands.

She uses ten minutes acting casual. Doesn’t want it to look like the bet it is, so she waits. Then, when Frank’s in the bathroom and Billy’s lurking by the crudités, Jessica very casually saunters over.

“Is there something I should be doing?” he says once it’s clear that she’s there to talk to him. “I assume you’ll let me know.”

“You’re good,” she says. “Everything useful has been done. I think we’re winding down.”

He nods a few times, flicks a look up at her. “You feel good with your people around?” he asks. “I notice you’re less than completely delirious.”

“Yeah? I hardly recognize you in full light,” she snaps back. “Though I guess there’s no shadows for you to lurk in.”

“I’ve got an eye out.”

That gets a smile out of her, or most of one, and Billy smiles back. Jessica takes several pieces of celery and mows through them, and then she says, “So what’s the deal, you’re here under duress? I’m sure we’ve got it under control, you don’t have to do us any favors.”

“No,” Billy says, with careful civility. “I’m here for Karen.”

“Yeah? Couldn’t tell. You’ve seemed pretty busy being a miserable bitch.”

Billy raises his eyebrows at her, and has a good bite of cheese before answering. “Just tell me what you’re after,” he finally says. “How do you want me to act, here?”

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

“You clearly have something in mind.”

“Fuck off, I’m just saying act human.”

“Right,” he says. “Like a human who’s in a room with people with superpowers who are asking for his help in the moment. That’s what I should be acting like?” He gives her an absolutely withering look, but something about that was vulnerable, too. The fact that he said it at all, probably.

She nods. “I meant more like a spec ops Marine who’s been called into this elite team as a valued member of it, but I take your point.”

“Valued,” he repeats flatly. “Sure.”

“What stick’s up your ass today?” she demands. “Seriously.”

He shrugs at her. “Could ask you the same question. All of a sudden, you aren’t playing nice because the good guys are around?”

Interesting. Jessica narrows her eyes at him. That’s quite the interpretation. “I wasn’t ‘playing nice’ because you were being an asshole about Karen, dipshit,” she said, using air quotes to make sure her point was clear. “You know Karen, right? The reason I’m helping you?” Billy raises his eyebrows, finishes chewing, and while he does Jessica gets a final word in. “I guess it’s more convenient to think I hate you, though. Then you don’t have to reexamine your behavior.”

“Ouch,” Billy says mildly. But then he itches his hairline in a twitchy sort of way, and she thinks maybe she’d gotten under his skin.

“I’ll play nice,” Jessica shrugs one shoulder. “I’ll make small talk. What do you think about God?”

“Not real,” Billy answers immediately, barely paying attention. “Never believed in him.”

“Did you do the whole church thing?”

“They had Sunday school at the group home,” he says, half to himself. “But I never paid much attention.”

“Better than mass,” she says, and his lack of a reaction tells her she’s won the bet. This guy was never Catholic.

“I thought,” he begins, but then he stops.

“Spit it out, jarhead.”

He gives her a look, half warning and half amused. “I didn’t realize you were one of them,” he finally says. “The heroes.”

Jessica doesn’t like that; she wrinkles her nose. “I’m not.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“Wasn’t trying to,” she counters, and looks him dead in the eyes. His are cold, black. “I’m not good. Not even mostly.”

“Sure you aren’t,” he says.

He’s doubting her. He’s so convinced he’s this massive edgelord, and she finds that absolutely unbearable. “Suit yourself,” she says. “But you don’t know shit.” And she flounced away.

“Hard no,” she tells Matthew when Billy’s in the bathroom. “Pay up.“

“I hope I don’t have to,” he says with a warm smile. “But I’ll be more than happy to.”

She socks him in the shoulder in a friendly sort of way, and he sort of stiffens, awkwardly formal. “You’re punching a blind man?” he demands.

“Just a little bit.”

Colleen ropes Jessica into cleaning up, which Jessica does poorly and slowly to make sure she’s never asked again. And no prize for guessing who comes over to help - Billy makes himself useful, actually cleaning up.

She looks at him, while he’s putting things in Karen’s infinite supply of matching pyrex. At the gnarly scars she’s been doing really good at not staring at. They’re carved deep in his face even still. Jessica knows she could do worse without breaking a sweat. He’s probably connected those dots, too.

“Thanks,” Colleen says to him. “We’ve got it.”

“Not a problem,” Billy assures her. And Jessica watches the way his face lights up when she smiles at him, notices, and keeps that to herself.

Frank comes over, his very footsteps gruff. “Leaving, Bill,” he grunts. “Got shit to do.”

Billy nods once, his mouth a thin line.

“I’ll be home tonight,” Frank says, looking all around the room.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Billy answers in a tone of voice meant to be light. And Frank leaves without another word.

“A real odd couple situation, huh,” Jessica says, busying herself with some carrot sticks.

“Just like that,” Billy agrees. “I killed his family and he ripped me to shreds.” His voice is smooth, but his hands are less than steady. "That classic bit."

Right. She remembers seeing him while his face was still healing, when he and Karen basically fell through her door looking for Claire. They were both shot and bleeding. Jessica remembers thinking about how upset she'd be if Billy died on her shitty couch. Now that she knows him better, she wonders why Frank saved him at all. It seems cruel.

Colleen and Danny leave around then, and Karen joins her and Billy in the kitchen. She stands next to Jessica and looks at him while he pretends not to notice her. "Hey," she finally says, her voice faint.

"Hi," Billy answers. Jessica watches the way he looks back at Karen, the slight flare to his nostrils. "How are you?"

"I'm okay. Excluding the stalker situation. How about you?"

"Great," he lies. And all three of them know it's a lie, so he must not want to convince her particularly badly. "I'm well," he adds, another artifact of the bad lie, and runs a hand over his mouth. "It's good to see you."

"You too." Unlike him, Karen sounds completely sincere. "I appreciate the help with this." Billy nods once, barely civil. Maybe Karen feels guilty. Maybe that's why the next thing she blurts out is, "I hope Jessica was able to help you with that favor you needed."

"Oh. Yes." Billy glances at Jessica; seems surprised she didn't say anything about it. As if all her time is spent talking about him. "She's been very helpful."

"It's not that I wasn't willing," Karen begins.

"I get it. No problem."

"Do you want some coffee or something?"

Billy cuts her off again. Obnoxious. "No. Actually, I should probably get going," he says. "See you on guard duty."

Jessica watches him head for the door and makes a split second decision. "Me too," she says. "Bye, nice party."

"You should come by again soon!" Karen calls at her back, and Jessica shuts the door behind her, cutting off the last word.

Billy has pressed the button for the elevator. He looks at her. “Somewhere to be?”

“Sort of,” she says. “You?”

He hesitates for a moment. “Not in any hurry,” he finally answers.

There’s her opening. He left that for her on purpose, and Jessica has to admit she wanted him to. Something’s bothering her, pulling at her. Spidey-sense, an obnoxious part of her brain tells her. Jessica doesn’t like that part of her brain. She only listens to it reluctantly.

“Will you call me an alcoholic if I tell you I’m going to a bar?” she asks.

Billy exhales a bit of a laugh through his nose. “Not out loud.”

“Then you can come with, if you want.” The elevator doors bing and open, and she heads in first. Billy follows. “Since you don’t have anything better to do,” she adds when he doesn’t say anything.

He puts his hands in his pockets. “Suppose I could make an appearance,” he says.

It’s getting dark now, and Billy keeps pace with her as she walks down the street. His hands are still deep in his pockets. Jessica finds herself copying his walk, taking broader, longer steps. She feels more powerful.

They pass an alley, and she hears a voice from in the darkness. Someone yelling. Reluctantly, she stopped. Billy stops with her. “What?” he says.

“Hold on,” she sighs, and heads down the narrow alley. It’s some dude, pressing a woman against a wall. Of course she gets involved. Not just because he’s got short brown hair, either. She can’t tell what color his hoodie is. She swallows hard, clears her throat. “Hey,” she says. “Get off her.”

“Fuck off, lady,” the guy says without looking. His hand is over the girl’s mouth.

Jessica sees red. She closes the distance between them in two big steps and rips him off her. And maybe she pulls a little harder than she meant to. Maybe she threw him into the opposite wall so hard, the brick cracked. She can’t find it in herself to regret it when the woman hugs her, immediately.

“Do you want me to call the cops?” Jessica asks, holding her. She feels a kinship with this stranger that she doesn’t exactly understand. Or wishes she didn’t.

“No cops,” the woman says. “I can’t.”

Right. She’s not white. For that reason alone, it wouldn’t end well. “Where’s home for you?” she asks. “Or wherever you’re going. I’ll walk you there.”

“Jess!” Billy yells from the end of the alley, and she turns around in time to catch a pipe from hitting her in the head. The dude’s back up, and trying to kill her.

She’s not in the mood for this. “You’re gonna regret that,” she says, and punches him in the face. He hits the wall again, blood dripping over his lips, and he’s out for good.

“You’re like, really strong,” the lady says, her voice shaking. She’s probably in her twenties, brown skin, a green trench coat. Shorter than Jessica, though that’s not saying much. 

“Pilates,” Jessica says. “C’mon.”

They meet Billy at the end of the alley, where he’s waiting. “Meet my friend,” she says. “Where are we going?”

“Four blocks down,” the girl says. “He followed me off the subway.”

“Fucking creep,” Jessica says flatly.

Billy says nothing. So they just walk. The few blocks, them on either side of the girl, until she’s in her building safely and they regroup on the sidewalk.

“You do this a lot?” he asks.

“You mind walking a little more?” He shrugs, so she sets off. Her third favorite bar is thirteen blocks away. Billy follows her there.

“For someone who says she’s not a good guy, that was pretty blatantly heroic,” Billy says after a moment, while they’re walking.

Jessica snorts. “Right. Like you know me from one thing I did today.”

“I’m curious. What would’ve happened, if he cracked that pipe across your skull? Would you still be standing?”

Strategically, she doesn’t want to answer. Actually, she doesn’t know. “Why,” she says. “Do you want to try it? Cuz generally that’s a third date kind of thing.” The thought of Luke is just bittersweet now. Easier to talk about. And even he hadn’t been able to really test her limits.

She’s so busy getting deep in her emotional memories that she didn’t notice Billy getting weird. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, and then she notices that he’s being a freak about it.

They walk a few blocks in silence, and then Jessica can’t handle it any longer. “So you’re just going to sulk and judge me tonight?” she asks while they’re waiting at a crosswalk. “I can see why you’re not the most sought-after roommate in New York City.”

“Who’s sulking?” he demands irritably.

Jessica just looks at him, walks next to him, in silence, and thinks about Karen's situation. Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and she realizes it's been going off for a while. Danny's texting her. He wants to grab dinner. He didn't realize how much he missed her, he says, with several emojis.

Billy's looking over at her phone, she notices as she puts it away. "What, you've never seen a phone before?" she says irritably. "Fuck off."

"Are you sure you want me here?" he blurts.

Jessica debates telling him insecurity is a real turn off, but she's getting the feeling he'll misinterpret that. "It's a bar," she says. "Doesn't really matter if you're there or not."

He stops, grabs her arm to stop her too. Jessica pulls free easily, to his surprise. Of course, she sighs internally. Of course he thinks he might still be stronger than her somehow. "Don't touch me," she snaps, and he sort of clenches his jaw in a way that makes her nervous. So she storms away. And he keeps up.

"Just listen," he says. "Listen to me." His voice cracks.

She stops dead on the sidewalk. The block is deserted, this is one of those weird in-between places, with empty storefronts and dim streetlights. A normal person might be scared. "What, dumbass," she says.

"What do you want from me?"

"Uh." Of all the questions Jessica might've seen coming, this sure as fuck wasn't one. "Nothing."

"Bullshit. That's bullshit." He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "You want something." Honestly, he's starting to sound a little unhinged.

"Why, because I said you could come to a bar?"

"You volunteered," he says, looking dead at her. His eyes are darker than the night sky. Black holes. "To help me. You wouldn't do that unless you wanted something."

Jessica narrows her eyes. "I don't. What could I even want from you?"

"I don't know. I don't know," he repeats, and walks past her, full of a pent-up energy that has filled him out of nowhere. "And now you want to go somewhere with me, and you threw some guy into a wall."

"That wasn't about you," she says indignantly. "Or him. It was about that girl, who should be able to get home without getting attacked by a creep. Hey. Listen to me." He's still pacing, jittering, and Jessica loses her temper a little bit. She shoves him back against the building - gently, so she doesn't break him - and knocks the wind out of him. Oops. "Listen," she says again.

Billy stays where she put him, chest heaving.

"Stop it," is all she can think to say, which is definitely anticlimactic. "Whatever meltdown you're having, believe me I get it. But it can't be about this," she says, with a general sort of motion. "You can come with me or not. I'm helping you because I care about Karen. End of story."

He still doesn't move, except to look away. His cheeks are pink. "I thought I had a grip on..." he begins, and trails off.

Jessica isn't exactly inclined to inquire further, but she's weakened from the afternoon of civility. "Sanity?" she suggests dryly. 

"Maybe," he says. "I've done a lot of things, things I thought I'd never... I mean..."

They stand there in silence. A woman walks by, glancing at Billy suspiciously and hurrying up a little.

“Easier to talk after a few drinks,” Jessica finally says, and starts to walk away. After a few seconds, she realizes she doesn’t hear his footsteps behind her, so she turns around. “You coming?”

He pushes off the wall after a second, and heads towards her without another word, and they finish the walk to the bar in silence.

They take a seat at a table in a dark corner, both of their backs against the wall, and Billy keeps pace with her for once. They suck down two drinks, and then he says, “Karen doesn’t like me.”

“Oh my god.”

“It’s just a fact, I’m not looking for pity. I don’t know why you’re lying about it.”

“Because,” Jessica says. “First of all, I don’t really care. And second of all, she’s never said anything even like that. So relax.”

Billy shakes his head. “She loves Frank,” he says. “She can’t like me.”

There’s history here Jessica’s only faintly aware of. Frank’s dead family, and Billy’s involvement, at the very least. Jessica cares only recreationally, but Billy seems fragile. So she thinks a little longer than usual before saying something.

“Why do I get the feeling our favorite journalist isn’t the real reason you’re freaking out here,” she finally says.

Billy tilts his head, irritated. “ _Can_ you read minds?” he asks.

Jessica shrugs, and then answers. “No. I’m asking. Actually asking.” She doesn’t expect an answer, of course. This is a criminal here, drinking with her. A fucked up ex-soldier with trust issues. She gets up and orders them another round for both of them, brings his back with hers and sets it down in front of him.

Billy looks up at her, his face oddly child-like. “Nobody likes me,” he says, matter-of-factly. “It’s something… immutable, something I’ve never been able to change.” He picks up his glass. “Frank’s family liked me. And I went and killed them. So. It’s something about me.” He sounds blasé about it.

“Maybe it’s because how you’re in the middle of a life-long pity party,” Jessica says, nose wrinkled, and sat back down. “Nothing’s that absolute, anyways,” she adds.

“Isn’t it?”

“No. It’s all grey, it’s all… debatable. That’s why it sucks.” She has a sip. “And that’s why, when you find somebody who will fight for you in this crap-sack world, you shouldn’t push them away.” This is accidentally deep; Jessica acknowledges that she should follow her own advice. Stop isolating, text Danny back, talk to Karen more. But she leaves that for later.

“How is it debatable, what I did,” Billy says. “I’m the reason his family’s dead.”

“I don’t know, but it is to him. Couldn’t kill you, in the end, so.” Jessica shrugs, takes another sip.

“Real mercy he did me,” Billy says bitterly.

“Maybe he did it for himself,” Jessica says. “Like I said.”

“It’s grey,” Billy proposes after a moment.

“Yup.” Jessica pulls her phone out. She does text Danny back, then. _Dinner for sure. When’s good for you? I don’t do hearts._

Danny replies almost instantly. _YES!!!!!! Tmr? Sushi?_

She loves sushi. He knows that. _Ok where ?_

“Tell the truth,” Billy says. “Why was I there, really?”

“Frank didn’t tell you?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. You’re going to protect Karen, right?”

“Of course.”

“So. That’s why.”

“No, who wanted it.”

Jessica sighs so deeply. “I don’t know, dude. We don’t sit around discussing you and our plans. We really don’t talk much at all.”

“You seem pretty friendly for not talking.”

“We’re all grade-A bullshitters.”

“No shit.”

Jessica isn’t good at drinking slow; she finishes hers and looks over at him. “So what was that meltdown actually about, huh?”

Billy screws his mouth up. “It was bad, wasn’t it,” he says with unusual warmth.

“Pretty bad,” she agrees.

“God. I guess…” The guy loves a dramatic pause. She hates it. “I guess,” he says more carefully, “I don’t exactly have a stable self-image.”

“No shit.”

“I’ve never had a family. Except him. And then I wake up in a hospital, and they tell me I had his family killed. So. A little hard for a person to know who they are under those circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t know,” Jessica says. “It’s a little hard to tell with you.”

Billy doesn’t smile, and she thinks that’s the most honest thing he’s done around her. He leans though, a little closer to her, and says, “I should get back.”

“I’ll walk you,” she says.

“I’m fine.”

“Please. You’re hardly in peak condition,” she says, so she walks with him anyways.

He’s slower, even with further to walk till he’s home. And he doesn’t say anything for a while, either. When he does talk, it’s weird again. “I’m not offended.”

“By what?” she demands.

“That you don’t like me.”

“Jesus Christ, dude. Grow up,” Jessica sighs, her hands deep in her pockets. “This is very middle school of you.”

“A man broke my arm in middle school,” Billy says. “I don’t think we had the same experience.”

“No,” Jessica says. “Especially since my parents died around then too.”

Billy nearly snaps his neck, turning to look at her. “What?”

“What,” Jessica echoes flatly. She has the upper hand for once, and it feels fucking good. “Oh, you didn’t know that?” she adds, to taunt him. “That didn’t factor into your all-knowing image of me?”

Billy looks ahead again, and won’t meet her eyes. “The ashes,” he finally says. “On your shelf.”

“Way to go, Agatha Christie.”

“What happened? Where did you go?”

For the first time, he sounds interested in her life. It doesn’t pass Jessica’s attention that it’s because it relates to his. “Foster care,” she says shortly. “Adopted by Trish’s mom pretty quickly, which was kind of worse. And then I found out my mom was actually alive, with powers like mine. But she was crazy, and then she actually died. So.”

“Worse how?”

“In basically every way,” Jessica shrugs. “You don’t have some kind of monopoly on shitty childhoods, dude.”

He laughs at that, like close to a real laugh. “Point taken,” he says. “But at least you had Trish.”

Trish who killed Alisa, Jessica’s brain reflexively told her. She never really knew her own sister. “Yeah,” she says. “Sure.”

It’s Billy’s idea to take a shortcut down a poorly lit street, though to be honest Jessica doesn’t stop him. Maybe she should’ve seen it coming, the big Greek guys closing in, but she was in her own head, thinking about her sister. Fuckin’ Trish.

“Hey,” she hears, and that’s when she realizes they’re in trouble. Some big dude’s in the shadows ahead. “Stop right there.” She hears two, maybe three guys behind her then, another one up front, and Jessica’s quick mental math indicates this is really fucking bad. She’s not good at protecting people in a fire fight. She’s not good at protecting herself, even.

“Wallets,” the guy says, and Billy doesn’t move. He’s waiting, she thinks.

Jessica figures she might as well bluff. “You don’t want to do this,” she says.

“I think you’ll find we really do,” another one of the guys says, and something about him gives her a shiver.

Billy shifts closer to her. “Your funeral,” he says calmly.

One in front pulls a gun. The other swings for Billy with a crowbar, which Billy does catch for a second, until the guy rips it free and whacks him in the leg with it.

Priorities. Jessica pulls the crowbar out of the guys grip easy, and whips it hard at the gun guy. His nose makes an audible crack, and while he’s cursing and bleeding she leaps at another one. She gets him off balance, but then she hears a gun shot, hears Billy cry out. “Fuck,” Jessica says to herself, and breaks the guy’s arm, leg, and hip in quick succession. Then she jumps, as fast as she can, and comes down on the other gun-guy with all her strength. Of course, the last guy is running away by then. So that’s fine. Whatever.

Billy’s clutching his arm, bent almost double, and Jessica puts her hand on his back. “Let’s see it,” she says. “Come on.”

He takes his hand away reluctantly, blood dripping between his fingers. It just clipped him, punching through his jacket and carving a furrow in his arm. “Not a good shot,” Jessica says.

“Lucky for me,” Billy answers, and screws up his face to get his jacket back on. Jessica takes off her scarf to tie it tight around his bicep and staunch most of the bleeding. Then Billy gives her a sharp, calculating look. “You’re fast when you want to be,” he says.

“Guess so. Come on. You can walk,” she tells him gruffly, and he sighs and makes a big fuss over it and starts walking again anyways.

She keeps an eye on him. He’s okay, mostly. He’s got a good front, but when he looks at her she can sort of tell what he’s thinking. “Are you done with your panic attack?” she asks.

“I could be convinced to be,” he says. And the street lights glance off his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, they cast dark shadows in his scars. She can see how he was once a beautiful man. Building an identity on it was dumb, but. So are most guys. “Just how strong are you?” he adds.

“Not sure.”

“You’ve never gone to a gym and seen how much you could lift?”

Jessica snorts. “A gym.”

“Not your favorite location?”

“Not enough weight,” she says. “I can lift a car. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten, testing it.”

Billy draws in a deep breath, slow, and holds it for a second. “Oh,” he says.

“Yup.”

“Do you do that often?”

She looks over at him in disbelief, and he smirks at her. Joke executed successfully. “No,” she says. “Special occasions only.”

“I hope I get to see it one day.”

“Stick around. Trouble’s got a way of finding me.”

Billy stumbles, hand shooting out for hers, and she does catch him. For a second, his hand is in hers, and Billy looks at her like she’s done something crazy. “You good?” she asks dubiously.

“Yeah,” he says, after a second, and takes his hand back.

“Weirdo,” she mutters, without any real malice behind it. “We’re close, right?”

“Yeah, close. You can go,” he says.

“Not what I asked.”

Billy lets her in with him, and it’s not like the last time she was here. She wanders to the window and he doesn’t seem that concerned about it. He disappears into his bedroom.

When he doesn’t come back out, she checks on him from the bedroom door. He’s nowhere to be seen. “Tell me you didn’t pass out,” she says loudly.

Billy sticks his head out of the bathroom. “Sadly still conscious,” he says. He’s shirtless, the one arm stained pinkish even though he’s started to clean it off. “You can go.”

“Okay,” she says. And she does head for the door, she even opens it. But then she closes it again, and ends up on the couch on her phone. Waiting.

Billy comes out like twenty minutes later, in a black T-shirt and sweatpants; he’s surprised to see her, freezes at the sight of her. “Uh,” he says. “Everything alright?”

“Fine,” she says. Malcolm finally replied to her while they were walking, turning down food for once. Apparently he had plans. Whatever, she had plans too.

“Do you need something?” he says.

“No,” she says.

“Do you need a place to stay?”

“You’ve been in my house, dude.” She flicks a glare at him.

“Yeah, well forgive me for trying to figure out why the hell you’re here, then,” Billy says defensively, his arms crossed.

“Fine, then I’ll go,” Jessica says, and stands up. “And everyone thinks I’m the rude one.”

Billy is frustrated, and he steps in her way. He doesn’t fall back when she comes toward him either. She doesn’t know if that’s about him or about her not being threatening but either way she’s annoyed. “Out of my way, Romeo,” she says.

“You don’t have to go,” he says. And there’s something in those eyes that she can see, for once. Warmth and fear.

“I don’t,” she repeats dubiously.

He just looks at her. After a second, she gets the feeling he might try to kiss her, which would be just about the worst possible outcome. So she pushes him back with her hand on his chest and he stumbles.

“I didn’t mean it,” he says, kind of desperately. “Earlier. About Karen. I was just…”

“I know,” she says. “I’ll see you around.”

Billy, after pushing her to leave, is very upset that she’s following through. He reaches out for her, her arm, and she doesn’t exactly pull away. She stops, his hand around her arm because she’s letting it be there, and says, “You’re real hot and cold, y’know that?”

“Only once you get to know me,” he answers solemnly.

“I didn’t realize we were there.”

He clenches his jaw, inhales, and his eyes go blank again. “You,” he says and lets all his breath out. “You are too. Hot and cold.”

“Must be an orphan thing,” Jessica says. She can’t tell if she’s kidding or not. She guesses ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

“Thank you,” he says quickly, before either of them move. “You were impressive.”

She shrugs. “If you say so. I’ll see you around.” She pulls her arm free and heads for the door.

“See you,” Billy echoes, softly, and she shuts the door.

Working security for Karen becomes as routine as like, picking up groceries. Jessica usually has the weekday day shift. Karen doesn’t need someone who looks scary when she’s fact-checking or working on another edit. Jessica is free to nap in a chair until someone comes in the office. It’s great. It works.

She’s napping when Karen’s phone goes off. “Who is it?” Jessica asks. The following silence is long, so Jessica opens her eyes and looks at Karen. “Is it him?”

“Uh, maybe,” Karen says. “Security has signed in a man as a guest. No name.”

Jessica hops to her feet. “Okay,” she says. “Get off your laptop.”

“I’m off,” Karen says immediately, and shuts it. “Danny has it all backing up to the cloud,” she adds.

“Good.” Jessica’s more than a little fuzzy on what that means. She texts the group. _Possible alert. Is someone around for back up_?

Danny replies before she puts her phone back in her pocket. _Coming._

Luke is close behind. _I’m nearby if you need more muscle._

 _Roger that_ , she says.

Karen is breathing hard, arms crossed tightly as she sits in her chair. “I guess I’m glad Trish insisted on the rubber-soled boots,” she says.

“Me too.” Jessica isn’t doing anything standing in the middle of the room; she sits on Karen’s desk instead. “It’s probably like, a delivery guy or something.”

“I wish that even just a delivery guy wouldn’t derail my day, though,” Karen mutters. “He shouldn’t have that power.”

“Yeah,” Jessica says. “You’d think there should be some sort of election to establish that power.”

Karen smiles, huffs out a bit of a laugh. “Yeah,” she says. “I should get some say.”

“We’ll work on that,” Jessica says.

There’s several seconds of silence then, while they wait. And then it’s just Billy, looking a little bashful. “Sorry,” he says.

“Jesus Christ,” Karen puts her head down on her desk.

Jessica would almost smile, actually, but it’s kind of too funny for that. “Nice one,” she says to him. “Great prank.”

“Sorry,” Billy says. “Didn’t mean to test the system.”

“Is everything okay?” Karen asks him. She’s nicer than Jessica; Jessica doesn’t really care if he’s okay, she just wants to nap some more. She had an actual client she was working for on nights. Sleep was quickly becoming a valuable commodity again.

“Yeah,” Billy says. “Fine. I’m here to walk you guys home.”

They like having two people to walk Karen home, just in case. Jessica didn’t realize it was that late. Neither did Karen; she frowns at her phone and says, “Oh. Alright. Thank you.” She starts to pack up her things, sort of hesitantly, and Jessica sinks back into her chair, exhausted.

Billy looks at her. “Long night?” he asks.

That’s about when Jessica gets the feeling he’ll be tagging along after they drop Karen off safely at her apartment. And a few hours later, she finds out she was right. No prize for guessing.

He acts very cool about it. “Anywhere to be?” he asks her once the door is shut.

“Not in a hurry,” she says.

“Do you see a bar in your future?” he suggests, and presses the down button for the elevator.

“Could do,” she says.

So that’s where they end up. And Jessica, who isn’t feeling that unstable, has one gin and tonic she nurses while Billy hurries through three drinks. For once, she’s intentionally more sober.

Billy is as put-together as ever, but she gets a sense of fragility anyways. Solid with fraying edges. When he looks at her, she knows something is coming. “I don’t know how to feel,” he says. “Really. With Frank, and.” The words are coming hard. He doesn’t want to say this. She doesn’t really want him to either. Why is she the recipient of this information? But Jessica likes information, as a general rule, and she stays quiet to wait him out.

“Really in general,” he finally says.

“Does it seem like I have any clue?” she says, swirling her drink around.

“You seem like you’ve got something. Some kind of…” He searches for the words, and after a second he that he changes what he’s saying. “Well, you have super powers. That’s something, at least.”

“Only people without them say that.”

“Only people _with_ them say _that_ ,” he counters. And she had to admit that was an alright point. Not one she’s gonna let go without a fight.

“Alright, Lieutenant,” she said. “Tell me this. Does anybody understand what it was like to be in war?”

“Not unless they were there,” Billy says.

“Right,” she says, and lets him get to the point himself.

“Alright,” he sighs very deeply, and finishes drink number four. “Point made. But you can’t tell me this is a net negative. It’s not like you’re… blind,” he said after a second. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see your down side.”

Jessica frowns. “Why do I have to prove that I’m appropriately tortured to earn your respect,” she says crossly. “Take my word for it. Or don’t.”

“I do,” Billy tells her reluctantly. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just…” 

She lets him squirm for a second, and then speaks up. “It’s not all bad,” she says grudgingly. “But it doesn’t fix things. Just makes them lighter.”

Billy laughs. He drinks so much she practically has to carry him out, and in the interest of expediency she takes him back to her place. So Billy crashes on her couch, pretty literally. And Jessica sits on her desk and considers if she feels safe enough to sleep.

“Jessica?” he slurs after a long enough pause that she assumes he’s sleep talking.

“What,” she says anyways.

“Did anyone hug you?”

Jessica narrows her eyes at him. “If this is about to be a dig about why I am the way I am, let me assure you I was exactly this pleasant as a child anyways.”

Billy shakes his head blearily, and turns over onto his side. “No," he says. "I'm just asking."

"That's the biggest lie I've heard in a while," Jessica mutters, but she does answer. What's the harm. "My parents tried. When I was with Trish, I didn't let Dorothy touch me. But Trish and I were..." She doesn't know how to explain what they were. "Why, why do you care."

He doesn't answer right away, he just flops over onto his back and sighs. "I don't," he says, mostly to himself. "Don't care about anything. But you seem like..."

Jessica sits and waits him out. She thinks about pulling out her bottle of gin, ultimately doesn't. She could probably sleep with him here on the couch. It's not like he could kill her. Probably.

"I'm on fire," he finally says. "But you're just... not."

It takes a second, for her to connect that to the original question. It's sort of dream logic, or drunk logic at least. She feels it more than she understands it. "I don't know," she says. "Sometimes I feel a little flammable."

"If you can joke about it, you're not," he informs her with total certainty.

"Is this what you were asking about before?" Jessica asks. "The other night when you flipped out. Was that..."

"Yeah."

"Well," she says after a second. "Being an asshole to everybody isn't going to help you. In case you're not aware."

He doesn't answer. He might've fallen asleep. That's probably for the best; Jessica doesn't want to keep talking about this anyways, because then she'll have to acknowledge she can't take the advice she's giving.

Jessica has always had Trish, for better or worse. So maybe their situations aren’t exactly a fair comparison. She thinks about that and keeps sitting there.

She doesn’t sleep for a while. And eventually, Malcolm comes by. He tends to, when he sees the light on late.

“Jessica?” he says as he opens the door.

“I’m here,” she says. “We’ve got a visitor.”

Malcolm comes in, looks at Billy for a second and then at Jessica. “So this is a halfway house now?”

“Shut up.” Jessica doesn’t know what to say. She digs her knuckles in her eye, and Malcolm comes over to her. He puts his hand on her back, and that’s something she makes note of now. Because of what Billy just said. “Jessica,” Malcolm says quietly.

“I’m okay,” she says.

“I know, I know.”

She doesn’t shake him off just yet. “I’ve been thinking,” she says. Her voice sounds low even to her. “What’s it like to come from a functional family?”

“Less idyllic than you’d think,” Malcolm says with a bit of a laugh. “But I guess… it’s knowing I had somewhere safe to land. If I fucked up, they’d be there. A lot longer than they should’ve been, too, after everything I did to them.”

“Kilgrave did it,” Jessica says, but that’s faint comfort.

“I know,” Malcolm says. “But I did too.”

She shifts over to one side, to make room for Malcolm to hop up next to her. He does, crossing his legs and leaning against her a little bit. “Trish,” she says after a second. “Was my safe place.”

“Trish?” Malcolm sounds skeptical at best.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Jessica says deadpan, and they both have a bit of a laugh at that.

Billy appears to be totally passed out. His chest is rising and falling evenly, and his eyes move a bit, under the lids. “You think I’m good to sleep while he’s here?” Jessica asks, but she’s too tired to really be scared.

“If being around you has taught me one thing, it’s that trusting people is dangerous,” Malcolm says, which is mostly a non-answer.

“If being around you has taught me anything, it’s that you’re full of shit,” Jessica says, and Malcolm laughs. “Dick,” she adds. “Give me an answer.”

“Could somebody even hurt you?” he says.

“You’ve seen me with a bullet in my shoulder, dude,” Jessica says. “Please.”

“They shoot Wolverine and we all know he’s fine,” Malcolm points out. “And it’s not like you’re interested in figuring out exactly what your powers are.”

“They’re not powers,” Jessica says. “They’re side-effects.”

Malcolm sighs. “Have I ever told you how that pedantic bullshit doesn’t work on me? I feel like I have. That’s definitely come up.”

“Alright,” she grumbles. “Enough of that.”

“Are you letting him stay here?” Malcolm asks with a smile in his voice. “Cuz we can kick him out.”

“You’d let me kick out a client?”

“I’ll go,” Billy says.

She doesn’t know when he woke up. It would be alarming if it was less exactly what she expected. “Did I ask you to go?” she says.

“You wouldn’t ask,” he says, and pulls himself up into a vaguely sitting position. “It’d be showing your hand too much.”

“Don’t puke on my couch,” Jessica says.

“Yeah I’ll have to clean it up,” Malcom adds, but he doesn’t seem particularly alarmed. “I should start charging a fee.”

“Do it,” Jessica says. “Worth every penny.”

“Is that retroactive? Cuz I’ve cleaned up your puke more times than I’d like to think about.”

“No you haven’t.”

“Yes, I have.”

Billy decides to try to stand right then, and Jessica hops up to catch him. “Okay,” she said. “We don’t need to be doing this. Lie back down.” She sort of pushes him, harder than she means to, and he stays down. Falls asleep for real as she watches.

“You need to sleep,” Malcolm says.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” she answers. “Go home.” When he hesitates, she adds, “I’ve got it. Really.”

Malcolm knows when to drop a fight. He goes. And Jessica sits in bed, and does a very stupid thing. It’s better than what she almost does; she almost calls Luke, before she thinks about what a colossally bad idea that would be. So instead she calls Danny.

“Hey, is everything okay?” he asks the moment he picks up.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool!” Danny insists. “I said call any time and I meant it.” There’s some rustling on his end. “Are you okay? Where are you.”

“Home, I’m fine,” she says. “Malcolm just left. I’ve got Frank’s friend on the couch here.” She kicks her shoes off awkwardly, and tucks her feet under her blanket.

“Billy?” Danny says.

“Yeah,” Jessica sighs. She leans back carefully, making sure not to bump her head. The last thing she needs right now is some kind of concussion.

“Since when do you let people crash with you?” Danny demands, getting a little petulant. “You haven’t let me spend the night.”

“Yeah, well. I’m reevaluating a few things,” she says after a second. “Ask again later.”

“Will do. You’re my favorite Magic 8 Ball.”

She can hear the smile in his voice. It scares her as much as it touches her heart. “You’re one to talk,” she says. “You were a fortune cookie for the first six months you were in the country, dummy.”

“I was not,” he grumbles, and then adds, “Two months, maybe.”

“Longer than that. I barely knew you two months in.”

“Four,” he says, instead of pointing out she wouldn’t know since she wasn’t there. That’s why she likes him, she thinks. One reason of many, at least. And she has to admit, she likes him for many reasons. There’s no point in talking around that anymore, especially in the privacy of her own head. But then, there’s probably a lot of things she doesn’t have to do anymore. This is just one thing she could start with, maybe.

On the other end, Danny sniffs. “Did you fall asleep?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “But you’re about to. I’ll let you go.”

“No, don’t,” he says, a little bleary. “We don’t talk enough. I want to talk more, with you. Come on.”

They’re perilously close to putting words to their relationship. Jessica feels it coming, like a storm in the air. “Another time,” she says. “When you crash here. Maybe.”

“I’d love that,” Danny says. “Seriously.”

“Okay,” she says. “Jesus.”

“Something the monks taught me,” Danny begins, and Jessica sighs. “Don’t sigh, this is relevant.”

“It can be relevant and annoying.”

“Something the monks taught me,” Danny repeats more firmly, “is that earthly attachments hold us down, but personal attachments can help us balance.”

“That sounds counterintuitive,” Jessica mutters.

“Well, there’s a reason they were able to guard the dragon Shao-Lao for centuries without incident,” Danny says, very self-righteous.

“I thought you said the dragon gave them powers,” Jessica says, and yawns. “Pick a lane.”

“Is it a lane to be impressed you heard and remembered that?” Danny says. “I get the impression that everybody mostly tunes me out.”

Jessica’s chest aches, clenches tight. “Something was bound to get through eventually,” she says. “Go back to sleep. Sorry to bother you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Whatever. Bye.” She hangs up before he can stop her. Unfortunately, that doesn’t keep him from texting.

_Breakfast tmr morning?_

Jessica says yes, and then goes to bed. At least if Billy kills her, Danny would go looking.

But Billy’s gone by the time she gets up.

They have a victory party, once Karen’s stalker is caught. Jessica brings a manilla folder, which she slaps on Billy’s chest the moment she sees him. “Here,” she says. “One left. Don’t tell me - it’s the president.”

“Not quite,” Billy says. “Unless you’re saying that’s in the realm of possibility.”

“Don’t push it.”

Karen is paying not so subtle attention to this conversation. At that, she perks up. “You two are working together?” she says.

“Short term,” Jessica says.

Billy looks at her, registers that she’s not telling Karen the whole truth, and smiles his empty, sweet smile. “We get along,” he says.

“Bullshit,” Karen says. “Neither of you get along with anybody.”

“Rude,” Jessica says. “And here I thought we were friends.”

Karen hides a smile, but doesn’t end up doing a good job about it. So then she just smiles at Jessica. “We’re friends?”

“In a way,” Jessica grumbles, which gets Karen to roll her eyes and wander away. It’s that kind of party, with everyone mingling. Jessica hates that kind of shit. She sticks by the drinks with Billy for now.

“You haven’t told her?” Billy asks, after a second of desperate staring after her.

“What, that we’re friends?” Jessica says, with withering sarcasm. She hoped it would dry out his questions. “No, I tend to keep that between me and my diary.”

“That you’re still working with me,” Billy says. “I thought this favor was for her.”

“It is,” Jessica says. “But that doesn’t mean she has to know about it. Who’s the final target?”

Billy keeps his hands deep in his pockets, and surveys the room. “I’m not prepared to say,” he says. “I’ll tell you later. Over a drink, perhaps.”

“Sure,” Jessica says on a sigh.

“Whoa. The enthusiasm. I thought you were the alcoholic, between the two of us,” he adds, trying to sound charming.

Jessica shrugs. “Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf. Gotten really into self-help books.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Billy says.

She can’t decide if that’s an actual insult, and doesn’t get there before Danny suddenly hugs her. She saw him coming, sort of, but let him sneak up anyways. And she doesn’t hate this. He doesn’t hold on too long. “Hi,” he says while he’s still close to her.

“Hey, dork,” Jessica said, and he let go of her. “How do you get more clingy the more I see you?” she asked, mostly rhetorically.

Danny has stopped taking what she says personally. He grins. “I must not be seeing you enough still. Hey man.” He offers Billy his hand to shake, and Billy does. “You look good,” Danny says to Jessica.

“That’s backhanded of you,” she frowns.

“No, it’s complementary,” Danny says. “I mean it. There’s a glow.”

“You must have your chi in your eyes,” Jessica mumbles, too aware of Billy standing right there. “How’re you?”

“Fine,” Danny says. “The sabbatical from the company is going well. Gym’s getting a bit of a reputation, solid customer base. You still have a membership waiting for you, when you’re ready to get in shape.” He says that actually casually, has a big sip of his martini right after and doesn’t pressure her or anything. Danny never puts pressure on her. Another one of the best things about him.

Jessica sighs. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” Danny says, and takes a mini sandwich off Jessica’s plate.

“Okay, I’ll come to the gym,” she says. “Next time Colleen’s there.” If Jessica’s going to be learning, it’ll be from the girl with some actual common sense.

Danny’s just staring at her.

“I’ll probably break some of your equipment,” Jessica adds, to hopefully dampen his enthusiasm. She glances at Billy, who’s got a smile warming his face. “I hit hard.”

“We can get more equipment,” Danny scoffs. “I’m rich, remember?” Jessica shoves him, a hand in the middle of his chest, and Danny falls back several steps but bounces right back. His smile is blindingly bright. “How hard can you hit?”

“You want to find out?” she says.

Danny nods. “I’d love to,” he says, and means it. That’s part of his power, she thinks, or his worthiness. Sincerity. Honesty, maybe.

“Aren’t we supposed to be mingling?” she says with some false grumpiness. “Go. Mingle.”

“I’ll be back,” Danny promises, pointing at her, and starts a lap of the room.

Billy reaches for Jessica’s plate and she slaps his hand away. “Shut up,” she says.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You know you did,” she glares. And Karen’s making her way back to them, so Jessica follows her own advice and wanders away to let them have their moment.

Luke’s here. Looking at him’s like a hot stove. It evokes Kilgrave right now, and Jessica doesn’t need that. She’s ready to make do with a quick awkward smile. Instead Claire waves her over for some pleasantries.

“Hey,” Jessica says.

“How’ve you been?” Claire asks. She and Luke are back together, looks like. Good for them. “Been a while since I’ve stitched up a bullet hole in your abdomen, I’ve gotta think that’s a good sign.”

“I’m the same,” Jessica says. “You?”

“Alright,” Luke answers. He sounds warm, like he did before. A good sign.

“Better,” Claire says. “Y’know, we wouldn’t object to seeing you around a little more. Sans injuries, even.” 

Jessica gives Luke a look. “Is that so?”

“I wouldn’t object,” he says, looking at Claire. “Under certain circumstances.”

That’s as close as she’s willing to get right now. Jessica leaves them alone before she can jinx it.

She ends up on the balcony, with Matt, with Billy pretending he isn’t following her. And since when has she become the life raft for him at this party? It’s obnoxious, but she doesn’t bring it up.

“Hey, loser,” she says to Matt.

Matt is not pleased with this new nickname. “Jessica,” he answers disapprovingly.

“Are you glad you can go back into hiding with your terrifying machine-woman girlfriend?” she asks with false cheer - not as false as it might’ve been before, but not as cheerful as it could’ve been either.

On her other side, she sees Billy perk up a little bit, and for whatever reason that’s when the shoe kind of drops and Jessica does her goddamn job, for once. Of course Billy’s in love with Karen. Basically everyone is, but also _of course_ _he_ is. Now that she’s thinking back over everything she knows about them, how Karen’s cried over him and Billy’s obsessed with her, Jessica’s starting to think this is something tectonic. Totally changing the landscape of both of their lives.

“Alright,” Matt finally says, and Jessica realizes he’s spent all that time angrily nodding. “So you don’t like Electra.”

“That’s generous,” Jessica says. “I don’t think about her at all.”

“Are you sure about that?” Billy inquires.

“Stay out of this,” Jessica tells him. “You never met her.”

Billy shrugs and makes a face into his drink, but stays silent. Jessica turns back to Matt, who’s looking very smug now. “Besides,” she adds. “Terrifying is a complement. You should know that.”

“That is a valid point,” Matt has to admit.

“Yeah, so. Answer the question.”

Matt doesn't want to. “We’re not in hiding,” he finally says. “We’re just being safe.”

“Right,” Jessica says. “Heard that song and dance before. Hope we get to see you more than once a year.”

“You’ve got my number,” Matt says.

“I do. I’m thinking about being a public nuisance.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Stick to your strengths,” he says, and makes his exit back inside.

That’s a decent line, Jessica has to respect it. She crosses her arms and looks out on the city, now with just Billy next to her.

Patience has never been her strong suit. “When are you going to tell Karen you’re in love with her?” she says casually. Lobs that grenade, and waits for the explosion.

Billy doesn’t really move. “Probably never,” he says. “It won’t help anything.” Then he looks over at her and answers her facial expression. “What, did you think I wouldn’t tell you?”

“I didn’t know we were there,” Jessica says after a second. “I guess. While we’re being honest.”

“Jess,” he says. She can’t remember if he’s ever said her name before, let alone a nickname. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had just… a normal friend.”

“Well, if you had you’d know that I don’t fit that description at all.”

“What’s a better one?”

She can’t come up with one. Especially since she opened up this conversation like a Cosmo quiz. “What do you mean, it won’t help?”

Billy turns to face her, really looks at her, and Jessica has the strangest sensation of being allowed in. He’s letting her know him in this moment. She wonders if he did this for Karen, too. “She’s too good for me,” he says as simple as that. “Don’t tell me you think otherwise.”

Jessica tilts her head, considering, and finds him to be right. “Okay, but. Why does that matter to you?”

“I’ve been working on actually caring about other people,” Billy says in the tone of a joke.

“Working on it?”

“In therapy.”

Jessica laughs, and then sees he’s serious. “Wait, for real? You didn’t strike me as the type.”

“What, you think I’m a wreck over my childhood as a fun weekly event?” he asks her, in the sarcastic tone that the two of them have mastered. “No. I’ve been seeing someone for like. Six months, maybe? Trish, actually…” The name hits her like a knife. He realizes too late, and then finishes the sentence anyways. “Trish recommended him.”

Jessica nods. “No, that’s good,” she says, in what she hopes is a convincingly positive tone. “Great.” She looks out at the skyline, and her eyes do not, _do not_ tear up.

“I’d apologize if I didn’t know that’d make it worse,” Billy says.

“And yet you’re still talking about it, and making it worse.”

“Well, that’s just because I’m an asshole,” he says, and she laughs again but this time on his terms. He smiles too.

“Ah,” Jessica says. “Yes, our commonality. Uniting feature.”

“A rare gift,” he agreed.

And look, in the interest of being honest, Jessica has been making an effort to acknowledge things to herself that made her skin crawl. Like how Danny is the closest thing she has to a little brother, and how part of her will always love Luke, and how much she misses Trish every day of her life in new ways. So, in that same vein, she has to acknowledge that now, she cares about Billy at least a little. In the way that you care about a spider, maybe. A pet tarantula. Still very capable of biting, no matter what you think is happening in its head. But something you don’t want to step on anymore. Something you appreciate in a way normal people probably don’t. You start to like those eight eyes, maybe.

Which, to just follow up on the metaphor, would be Billy’s pathological aversion to the truth. Or maybe his inability to grasp human emotions.

Look. Billy’s obviously not her best friend or anything - he hasn’t developed that capability. But some part of his essential build up is inside her too. Some dark, twisted DNA. The orphan thing, maybe.

“Hey,” Jessica says, and puts her hand on his shoulder. She leans on him a little bit, too. And this time, she notices how he stops breathing when someone touches him - how he’d done that all the other times, too. But she’s not asking about that. That’s a three or four drink later conversation. For now she’s just got one question. “Tell me. Who’s our last target?”


End file.
